"Aside from the flashlight and the real automatic pistol, I can't find that he's taken anything of our property," Jack said when the search was completed. "I guess we'd better return his own property to him. We don't want his money and wouldn't use his pipe."
"Now let's tie him up!" Arnold suggested. "I think it would be wise to sew him down to the sand. He's a slippery fellow."
"Good idea!" laughed Frank. "But tying is better all round."
"What shall we tie him with?" asked Tom. "I have nothing."
"Why, come to think of it," Harry put in, "how did you get ashore, anyway? Last we knew of you, you were guarding the Fortuna."
"While you lads were up the beach after that horseshoe crab," explained Tom, "I sat on the roof of the cabin with the glasses. I thought I saw a figure stealing along in the shelter of those pines to the eastward of this spot and after a while I made him out. The glasses showed that it was our last visitor on board the Fortuna. So I knew he'd bear watching, as they say, and I went below to get a gun for emergency. When I came out again, he was real close, and I saw what he intended to do. I simply started the engines, slipped the cable and ran the Fortuna high and dry on shore, tumbled over the bow and arrived in time to checkmate his little game. I'm glad, too!"
"So are we!" heartily agreed the boys with one accord.
"But what are we to do with this chap?" queried Jack. "It rather worries me. He's apt to be a white elephant on our hands."
"It would serve him good and right," began Arnold, "and be only justice, too, if we marooned him on this very island where he left Frank. I think that's the best way out of the whole thing."
"Let's set the chap down by the fire," Tom suggested, "while we argue it out. There's still a little raw edge on the wind."